The 8 issue of IcoanaCredintei/ Icon of Faith (IFIJISR) encompasses a group of articles on various themes, dedicated to the areas of Theology, Education, Science and Religion. The committee of corresponding authors for the issue Number 8, Year IV (2018) of IcoanaCredintei are intended to provide interaction within the community of thinkers, engaging in the dialog between religion and all types of science

In the ecclesiastical language, the term canon (κανών) was introduced to indicate the practical rule of the teaching of faith and to differentiate it from the concept of law (lex – νομος). This term therefore identifies any rule of the Church that puts into practice the doctrine of faith, defined by dogmas. The expression "holy canons" defines the collection of canons approved and received by the Church. Over time, some authors have made various proposals on the role of holy canons in the Church, oscillating them to be canceled as unsubstantiated until they say that their text would have been revealed. According to the doctrine and practice of the Church, the holy canons apply pastorally to ecclesial life, customized for each individual situation. Therefore, in the Church, it is necessary for all activities to take into account the fundamental principles contained in the holy canons, so that the life of the Church conforms to the teaching of christian-orthodox faith.

Nowadays the family, and especially the Christian family, endures a whole series of challenges. People often forget that the family is an institution that was founded by God, thus gaining a sacred character, and are promoted ideas according to which the rules of the Christian family and the “canon” of the social values are ignored. We may assert that today we are living in a “dictatorship of indecency”, in which the Christian wisdom is considered either a weakness, either an archaic attitude, while indecency with all its forms is considered a modern and actual attitude. Family and marriage are regarded more and more as a dissoluble collusion, noticing an attempt to relativize them and to question their significance and importance, for man and generally for life, by promoting new and so-called modern forms of “free cohabitation”. Undoubtedly these are highly actual issues which need an ample and thorough analysis

Although it seems a “common prayer”, devoid of any feature, given its repeated presence in the Funeral Ordinances, the prayer “God of the Spirits...” has a certain value, being considered one of the representative prayers for the dead; We would therefore like to dwell in this short article on some of its textual forms, which, in our opinion, are decisive in particular as regards the origin

Virtues are the first to contribute to the deeper definition of the soul that is why the acquisition of virtues is a continuous and steady training to imitate the life of obedience and the sacrifice of Christ's love for its fellowmen. Acquiring virtues is a precondition for man to open up his ability to love. All virtues lead the mind to the pursuit of divine love, which is, in fact, an embodiment of the divinity that is secretly lowered into the nature of man. It is the virtue that gives man the constant disposition to do the good. This virtuous disposition of man is mysteriously hidden by God in the depth of the soul. It is revealed through body in the process of doing. If the soul lacked the flesh, it would only have a virtuous mood or enjoy the virtues of virtue itself. That is why, it is by the flesh that the manifestation of these goods of virtues towards all the others is done. From this point of view, the social character of virtues is observed.

This article aims to explore strategies for inclusive education policy in Romania. To this were analyzed indicators on the coverage of the school-age population identified as a population with special educational needs and integrated into mainstream education. In line with inclusive education policies in Romania was performed and an analysis of strategies for achieving inclusion process of people with special educational needs in mainstream schools in Romania. Research methodology turned to the following research techniques: analysis of legal documents describing the policy of inclusion in mainstream education of children with special educational needs, secondary analysis of statistical data on the number of children with special educational needs integrated into mainstream education, analysis quality indicators specific integration into mainstream education of children with special educational needs. The findings reflected the following: there is political inclusion in mainstream schools for children with special educational needs and are provided strategies for attracting and keeping the mass education of this category of persons. Quality education for this category of persons is subject to fundamental operation of multidisciplinary teams at each school and adult education institutions on observance of the right to education for all.

Primary children's education requires from educators the use of a wide range of methods. The more creative the personality and methods of education of teachers, the more creative classes become. The present paper is a theoretical approach intended to emphasize the role of interactive teaching methods in the development of creative thinking of primary pupils. There is a theoretical part, presenting the inventory of the most efficient methods, a methodological part, with the specific aspects of each method when applied and an analytical part, encompassing the SWOT analysis of each, as well as obstacles that teachers may encounter when using them in class. The conclusions will envision the psychological and methodological implications of using such methods that develop the creativity of primary children. A special attention is paid to the experiential domains each method is applied mostly to and to the way primary teachers should develop their own creative style of teaching. Several directions of teaching research methodology shall be drawn in relation to this topic

Religiosity, as a psychic dimension of human life, gradually forms, stage by stage, in connection with the general development of the being, at different stages of age. From a psychological point of view, one can speak of the existence of an innate religiosity, a religious potential that man has as ontologically given, but spiritual evolution and perfection is continuous throughout his life. Childhood, adolescence, maturity, old age are not only stages of the ontogenetic development of the human being, but they are also landmarks and thresholds in the formation of a religious dimension, in each of which having proof of the active presence of God in human existence . The child, with its specific innocence and purity, seeks God like he seeks his parents, the teenager calls him with all the power of the inner tumult, the adult refers to God as a good friend, to support and help in difficult moments, and the old man with the wisdom of the years hopes to be close to Him.The grounds of religious life are set inside the family, from parent’s patterns of behavior reveal to the child how to behave, how to pray, how to create a relation with God

In this article our aim is to attempt a philosophical interpretation of the phenomenon of political nihilism the way the latter is developed in the life and thought of the Russian anarchist Sergei Nechaev. Taking a deeper look at his pamphlet Catechism of a Revolutionary and aided by the profound analysis of the anarchist’s thought made by Fyodor Dostoevsky, we will try to show how nihilism may break every possible bond between the individual and the society opening, thus, the path for the possible appearance of more Nechaevs and Nechaevists in the modern world

The history of Romanian homiletics knows figures of enlightened hierarchs and scholars, fully aware of the importance of preaching and educating the faithful, homilists who contributed through their sermons to the perpetuation and preservation of the Orthodox faith. A figure of diligent hierarch and zealous preacher, with a significant contribution to the development of Romanian homiletic literature in the second half of the 20th century, was Metropolitan Firmilian Marin of Oltenia, whose life and works provide an exemplary pastoral paradigm, worthy of our attention and deep gratitude. This paper aims to present and investigate the homiletic activity conducted by Metropolitan Firmilian, who holds a prominent place among the great hierarchs of the Romanian Orthodox Church and the Romanian nation: a worthy servant of Christ, a founder of holy churches and places of worship, a great scholar, a supporter of culture and arts and a father of the suffering and needy people. We also aim to provide a model to contemporary preachers, animated by missionary zeal, according to the example set by the diligent hierarch of Oltenia in his times and historical, social, economic and political circumstances.To make his homiletic creation more accessible, we do not merely provide a bio-bibliography and an overview of his sermons, but we also undertake a critical examination of his speeches, in order to present the genres employed, the homiletic technique, the style, originality and coherence of language, with examples that are highly useful to today’s preachers

Although in the Old Testament there is no image and no representation of God in the creation text it is written that God created man in his own image and likeness. Is Man’s form God’s image? The image and likeness cannot be man's body because God is spirit and has no body and animals have bodies but are not in the image of God. The image refers to the soul and to the mind. The likeness of man to God must be limited to the immaterial part of man. The functional interpretation of the „imago Dei” understands the image to relate to humanity’s role as God’s agents in the world. The image of God cannot be regarded as an idiom of man’s attitude. It is not a quality in man but a declaration that God had the will to bring to existence a partner. Thus, man becomes God’s partner. Nowhere does the Old Testament indicate that the divine image and likeness are lost because of the Fall. The image of God constitutes all that differentiates man from the lower creation. Man has the will, the freedom of choice, self-consciousness, self-transcendence, self-determination, rationality, morality, and spirituality. The image declares the immovable relationship between God and man. Excludes the natural affinity to this relationship and accepts the heterogeneity of the creation with reference to the creator. It is a creation in the image of God rather than a creation as an image of God.

The Acts of the Apostles speaks often about the social work of the Church through recurring concepts such as koinonia, mercy, hospitality and philanthropy. This paper deals with the ways that the Book of Acts promotes harmony in conditions of diversity (such as religious, cultural, or political pluralism). Several texts will be compared and interpreted to draw a clear picture of the Church’s call to serve the world and to witness Christian Faith in words and deeds. The world can be healed with the power of the Divine Word. This does not happen only by preaching and teaching, but also by acting and caring for the needed and the poor. The theological narrative of Acts shows how the Christian faith - the Way, as Luke likes to call it - grants a new understanding of reality and calls people to break the rules of worldly wisdom and to behave according to the wisdom of the Kingdom, where the principles of social relation are redefined through the lens of the Resurrection.

According to the Orthodox Theology, holy Icon is a reality of knowledge and vision of God. The icon is an embodiment of the love of God, thus the central theological ground of the veneration of icons is a Christological one. For the theology of the icon, the concept of the face as a reflection of the prototype is central. The specificity of the Orthodoxy shows us that Theology is the science of the complete knowledge with a direct existential implication of the only truth about life-Maker, iconically expressed by God – Holy Trinity. The theological background of knowledge is essentially of ecclesial nature, as a gracious ambience in which the Divine Revelation represents the power of Truth. That is why Church is the guarantee and the authenticity of the free and infallible knowledge of the divine truth which it internally possesses.

Unfortunately, about the nominal remembrance of believers, aloud, during the evening service (that is, at Vespers) was written very little in our country, and not in a decisive manner. That is why I want to emphasize that the analysis of this theme calls for a much larger type of research, which the present study does not consider; However, we will try to point out some aspects of this usance. What can be said about this practice is that within the structures of Byzantine rite the remembrance of the living and the dead during the evening service has “survived” only in the rule of the Lity, which indeed, was “included” in the Vespers structure but also in the Compline’s.

Immediately after death, the soul plunges into a light at the same time tender and lucid, allowing the soul to see his life again, to understand its innermost depths. It is that sensation of both wellness and pain that you experience every time a spiritually brilliant being is scrutinzing your soul, easily penetrating the ugliness of your character. This purifying sleep is not at all a state of unconsciousness. Death sets the person free from this leather costume in which we were enfolded the moment we went out of the paradisiac condition and by means of which we have been directed from transparent participation toward the universe. The shapes, the faculties, the senses of the body, aspired by the infinite, become interiorized and it is no longer the soul inside the body, but the body inside the soul. The senses that have become spiritualized, the perfect memory permit true personal meetings, not just between the dead, but also between the dead and the living. The place of these encounters can only be Christ, this centre toward Whom all the lines converge, Christ in Whom we are all one another’s limbs. The prayer of the Church facilitates and accompanies the exode of the soul.

Hesychasm is the spiritual way of living characteristic of Eastern Christianity. It started out in the monastic area and then spread out among the other believers, giving them all the possibility to have access to the highest form of mysticism. Hesychasm relies on two fundamental principles of the Christian-Orthodox doctrine: that of man’s deification in Christ, supported and formulated by the Greek Church Fathers, and the practical experience of the Desert Fathers, who put into practice the continual prayer. The prayer “of the heart” is an expression of the Holy Spirit, an exercise needed to enter in communion with the essence of life, of union with God. Hesychasm is nothing else but a form of recovering the peace of the Spirit, a spiritual way finding its attainment in the intimate communion with God.

Even though on Religion and Science opposition an impressive amount of blood has been shed, today many scientists, philosophers, and theologians throughout history have seen compatibility or independence between the two domains of thinking. The complex but enduring relationship between the sciences and diverse world religions has now transformed itself into what some are calling a new scholarly field of science and religion. In the last two decades public awareness of and interest in this complex and often contentious relationship between science and religion has reached an unprecedented level. All religious traditions and all forms of scientific work have something to gain as well as lose in the process of mutual interaction, and the historical record demonstrates profound and longstanding engagement between science and religion in all literate cultures.

Father Arsenie Papacioc lived his life in the middle of many transformations of the Romanian nation, passing from the “fascination” of the Legionary Movement to “the foolishness” of monastic life. He had the experience of the prisons of different periods of the regimes in Romania, but also of the wilderness, getting to represent the life of the Orthodox Church prior to, under and after the communism. For this reason, Father Arsenie’s life is intertwined with the lives of many remarkable cultural, political and especially ecclesial characters of the history of the Romanian society, from the Patriarch Justinian to the Archimandrites Cleopa Ilie and Ioanichie Bălan, from the community of the monasteries Cozia, Tismana (Cioclovina Skete), Sihăstria, Antim, Slatina, Neamț, Cheia, Căldărușani, Dintr-un Lemn, Cernica and Techirghiol to the members of the Burning Bush Movement, from the multitude of believers to hierarchs of the Orthodox Church of Romania, from the parish of Filea de Jos (then Filea de Sus, as well) and those of Orthodox faith to those of other religious denominations and convictions. Thus, Father Arsenie marked the epoch he lived in by the proper arrangement of his spiritual life at the measure of holiness, receiving many charismata from the God glorified as the Holy Trinity.

The Orthodox theological worldview often finds itself confronted by the unspoken nihilism of empiricism, with little common ground for dialogue. This article establishes that common ground for discursive exchange through exploring the apophatic aspects of Kantian transcendental theology, which in turn can become a bridge to the Orthodox negative theology. Kant drew continental thought along certain foundational lines with his critique of pure reason and transcendental idealism; it was his way to locate empirical science with respect to the perceptual foundations of thought, which are properly understood philosophically. In this project, Kant would seek to secure the Christian faith in the transcendental—i.e., that which underlies all empirical experience. Even so, certain openings to traditional religious mysticism are also to be found in his project, particularly with respect to transcendental theology. This article explores these Kantian foundations for an apophatic transcendental theology in relation to the hesychastic writings of Gregory of Sinai, Gregory Palamas, and Nikitas Stithatos. This in turn becomes a new inroad for dialogue with empirical science.

A remarkable spiritual personality, unanimously acknowledged, the archimandrite father Sofian was known and appreciated especially for three qualities or gifts that God had bestowed upon him: as a worthy church painter, preacher and chanter with a divine calling. His rare kindness, his modesty, his composure, his endless patience and his theological culture are features that make up his spiritual portrait. The homiletic activity conducted by the archimandrite father produced a volume entitled Collected Speeches. Sermons and Meditations, which includes together many of the sermons and meditations through which Father Sofian fervently preached the Savior’s Gospel and its embodiments in the lives of Christians. His sermons have a regular form, and consist of three parts – the introduction, usually very short, intended to present the topic to the audience, followed by the body of the sermon which covers several pages, and the conclusion, which often includes an exhortation based on teachings extracted from the respective sermon. The three composing parts are not separated formally, but rather they derive naturally from one another.

Alexios I Komnenos has been characterized as a gifted military leader. Nevertheless, apart from his military career and after he took the throne, Alexios proceeded to certain measures in order to revive an empire in condition of decline. Alexios established himself as a defender of Orthodoxy, since he helped monasticism, fought heresies and supported the building or renewal of foundations, such as monasteries and churches. In this paper, I deal with Alexios’ church policy and how he defended Orthodoxy.

Early Christianity could enumerate only a very limited number of higher educational institutions. One of the best known is Origen’s “academy” in Caesarea (Palestine). Gregory the Wonderworker wrote a speech of praise, ‘Oratio panegyrica’, to his professor when leaving the school after many years of study. The speech illustrates a number of interesting facts about the professor, the students, and the curriculum. The low number of students made it possible to achieve a very close relationship between the teaching staff and the students. The teacher was very much a spiritual father and a friend. Gregory thought that Origen was an example of a godlike person, and thus also an example to be followed. The likeness of God consisted first of all in likeness with God’s Logos. A person living in accordance with reason lives the life of God. The students participating in the tuition provided by Origen came from respectable classes of the society. Both men and women could participate, both young and grown-up people. Many can be classified as seekers, that is, persons looking for an intellectually acceptable world-view.